1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to an image processing apparatus and an image processing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the launch of the Revised Consumption Tax Exemption Program for Foreign Visitors in Japan on Oct. 1, 2014, products covered by the tax exemption program were enhanced to include consumable supplies (e.g., foodstuffs, beverages, medicines, cosmetics) in addition to general goods that were the only items previously covered by the program. As a result, even general stores, such as drug stores and convenience stores, selling consumable supplies are now allowed to sell tax-free products by applying for a tax-free shop permit. By being able to offer products to tourists tax-free (amounting to an 8% discount as of the filing date of the present application), these stores may be able to encourage purchasing of consumable supplies and thereby expand sales opportunities.
Note that while stores may benefit from expansion of sales through the offer of tax-free products, they also have certain obligations, such as (1) passport confirmation, (2) tax exemption sale document creation, (3) tax exemption sale document filing, (4) purchaser declaration procurement, and (5) document storage (7 years), for example. For this reason, a substantial increase in expenses is expected such that stores may be disinclined to apply for a tax-free shop permit.
For example, potential new tax-free stores may include small stores (e.g., a store that is not a chain store) and individual merchant stores belonging to a particular commercial shopping district that has applied for tax-free shop permits all together. For such stores, investment in equipment and systemization of tax exemption sale document creation may be quite burdensome.
For example, such stores may not be able to afford high-cost equipment dedicated for the creation of tax exemption sale documents. Thus, techniques are desired for enabling the creation of tax exemption sale documents using existing general-purpose office equipment (e.g., a copier or a scanner) that can be used for purposes other than tax exemption sale document creation, for example.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-102265 describes a technique for supporting the creation of a document by extracting characters from a document scanned by a scanner. Specifically, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-102265 describes an identification card recognition method for detecting characteristic characters indicated in an identification card.